Dan Wolf has built a great reputation in a term and a half as state senator. His admitted problem starting his race for governor has been name recognition beyond his district. Assuming he overcomes his State Ethics Commission hurdle, as a “Boston Globe” editorial and most others commenting feel he should, a lot of that problem should be solved.
At this writing, it’s the Ethics Commission that needs to do some explaining. It’s a vital part of their job to prevent conflict of interest in office holders, so why are they getting around to it in Wolf’s case only now, having given him a term and a half in which to prey on the public?
Its been pointed out by Wolf and many others that the so- called contracts with Massport are not the sort that are susceptible to influence. Shouldn’t the Commission have informed themselves three years ago about the nature of the fees paid by airlines to use Logan?
Given the timing, it’s not surprising that people are wondering if the Commission itself has been influenced.
It is ironic that it’s Wolf’s corporate background that is causing him trouble right now, since it’s his creation of and involvement with Cape Air, widely perceived as a model company, that is one the the strongest parts of his candidacy and makes him stand out from most politicians anywhere.
In recent decades there have been enough negative corporate examples to make you wonder whether “model company” isn’t an oxymoron. It seems almost a law of economics that however promising, creative and useful a company looks coming out of the starting blocks, at some point it turns into something else in which the original mission gets lost in greedy obsession with the bottom line. Cape Air has the reputation of a .refreshing anomaly.
James P. Freeman’s “My View” piece (7 August) ridiculed Wolf”s progressive ideas for lacking “realism”. He seems to have gotten it exactly backwards. In Dan Wolf we have that rare thing, a candidate whose views have been tested in the marketplace. Easy for someone to talk the progressive talk, but Wolf has proven the practicality of his ideas and principles in action, in running an actual, successful company.
“As a political philosophy, progressivism eventually reveals its contradictions,” scoffs Freeman, providing examples of such contradictions. For instance, Wolf runs a company right here on Cape Cod yet is a board member of the Association to P reserve Cape Cod , which opposes the controversial Lowe’s move into Dennis.
Other examples: “Wolf runs a corporation yet rails against ‘corporate control of our economy.’ And, paradoxically, Wolf supported the Occupy movement.” (I.e, a CEO must be one of the one percent so what’s he doing consorting with the masses?)
(The “My View” author doesn’t cite this one, but Wolf is also, though a corporation man himself, outspokenly opposed to corporate-owned Pilgrim nuclear power plant.)
Bizarre contradictions indeed. A CEO who doesn’t act like one, whose company is mostly employee owned, who chooses not to pull down the typical obscene CEO salary 200 times the salary of the company’s average worker, which is the average ratio these days (up 100 times in the past 50 years)? A capitalist guided apparently by something other than greed? A capitalist who doesn’t think corporations should be able to ride roughshod over the people (as NSTAR seems intent on doing)? Who believes in restraint? Who can run a good company and for that very reason be opposed, Occupy-style, to how a lot of other corporations behave.
Will wonders never cease.
Dan Wolf is an ambitious guy, not for himself but for his progressive principles and ideas. “Being the governor of Massachusetts is an opportunity, literally, to change the world. I believe that,” he says. I believe he believes that. As jaded about politics-as-usual as most people, I love that ambition. Change the world from little old Massachusetts? I want the chance to see what he means by that.
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